


please don't say you love me

by charcoalsuns



Series: sportsfest 2018 [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Developing Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-12 12:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15339957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: Part of a long, quiet walk.





	please don't say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> (BR 2) [for a prompt by artenon](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/8539.html?thread=1006427#cmt1006427):
> 
>  _Just please don't say you love me_  
>  _'Cause I might not say it back_  
>  _Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that_  
>  _There's no need to worry when you see just where we're at_  
>  _Just please don't say you love me_  
>  _'Cause I might not say it back_  
>   
>  \-- Please Don't Say You Love Me, Gabrielle Aplin

  


Funnily enough, nighttime _is_ a good look on Tsukishima. His hair's grown out further since the last time Kuroo saw him, almost covering his ears and sweeping down over the edges of his glasses, and the volume of it in the light from every open storefront they pass has Kuroo wanting to reach out and---

"Are you kidding me." Tsukishima looks at him through the very side of his eye, like rotating his neck that tiny extra bit is beyond his baseline of courtesy. "Don't ruffle my hair."

Kuroo removes his hand, slower than he strictly needs to, stretching his own neck a little to assess Tsukishima's expression. _Probably_ not truly annoyed, though Kuroo will be the first to admit he does, on occasion, still assess wrong. He shows a smile, fingers brushing Tsukishima's shoulder on their way to dig back into his jacket pockets. "Was there an _in the middle of the street_ with that request, or was it à la carte?"

Tsukishima snorts, answering Kuroo's first, unasked question. "I said exactly what I wanted. Not that you take orders." He extracts a gloved hand from his ridiculous coat as their steps slow for the corner, layers of stuffed fabric swishing as he presses the pedestrian crossing button -- two seconds hold, then back off, like always.

"Some things can't change," Kuroo says, grinning forward at the passing cars. "Where would I be if I let people lead me off the menu?"

"Just where you are now, I imagine."

There's a smirk in his voice; Kuroo tries to turn his head at a normal speed as he goes to catch it. "I," he says, setting his shoulders back, "believe I take offense." Nothing to be said for the delight he can hear in his own voice. Maybe it's a character flaw, he thinks, but somewhere, someway, he does enjoy being talked back to.

And doesn't Tsukishima know it. "Any such concern for me," he says, stepping out with a methodical glance around as the lights change, "who has to suffer your offense when you take it?"

Kuroo matches him stride for stride across the wide, painted lines like it's a game. "Concern?" he says. "Of course. But not for that." Because this is no game, and if he doesn't want to follow, neither does he want to lead.

They walk a few more blocks in quiet, noise enough for a city reaching their chilled ears from all directions. Kuroo tries not to linger over all the things he would do or say -- the things he has done, and has said -- to catch that unassuming light in Tsukishima's face when he's placing down an upper hand. He manages to cut himself off when Tsukishima lands a brief touch to his elbow.

"Do you mind if we stop in here?"

It's a bakery, and the near-empty illuminated display baskets might reflect across Tsukishima's glasses but Kuroo can see the soft, small hope in his eyes, and of course, of course he doesn't mind. He tilts his head, corners of his mouth twitching upward, and gestures them both in.

"Shut up," Tsukishima mumbles as he pulls open the door. Warm light slips around him from inside. Kuroo, head still tilted, still laughing to himself, finds instead the way Tsukishima's shoulders rise and close toward his ears and can only think, _That isn't what I wanted to say._

Tsukishima asks for a piece of shortcake to go. Kuroo squats next to the counter, peering in at the single servings of pastry resting on their thin, crimped papers. There aren't many left on display now, as the round clock on the wall ticks toward closing time, but the varieties there are still bright and pristine: one ribboned with chocolate, another sprinkled with coconut, still more shaped by molds and brushed with butter until they glisten. There's even some sort of cake topped with an orange icing cat with a tiny purple icing fish in its tiny piping mouth.

"330 for that one," comes Tsukishima's voice over his shoulder, quiet, and Kuroo blinks. Next to him, Tsukishima lifts an eyebrow. "You looked like you were considering it," he says, before turning back toward the small, packed-up box in his hands.

Kuroo exhales a laugh, for want of a verbal reaction to being assessed in turn. "Are you offering?" he asks, playing up his tone, though he keeps his voice low while they're still inside.

Tsukishima only shrugs. "If you're asking."

Well. "Nah," Kuroo says, pushing smoothly to his feet. "I was just admiring the confectionery work." With this, he smiles toward the employee waiting on the other side of the counter, and thanks them as he pushes open the door to the street, holding it for Tsukishima behind him.

The train station is a few blocks away. There are just as many cars on the roads as there were all evening, and probably were all day, too, and after a short while gazing out at the controlled rush, every streak of reflected neon begins to look the same.

_Some things can't change._

Kuroo lets his footsteps stride a little shorter, a little quicker. Part of him finds amusement in the way he and Tsukishima are still walking at the same pace. "Hey," he says, a thought from earlier occurring to him again. "Why didn't you want to stay at the bakery, eat your shortcake before it got cold?" 

There's a pause as Tsukishima shifts, coat sleeves rustling as he switches hands on his carrying box, and pockets the one left empty. "I didn't want to impose," he says evenly, facing straight ahead.

"What," says Kuroo, lost. "You? I'm the one visiting, aren't I?"

"Earlier," Tsukishima says, "when I asked if you minded, going in for a bit. It seemed like you were humoring me." He turns his head, and his neck, quick as a read. "I appreciate it, of course. But all the same."

Kuroo stares, gears spinning in his head, rattling and crashing around the edges. They sound a lot like _oh_ and _no_ and _dammit_ before he gets a handle on their uneven bits and slows them down. "Tsukki," he says, trying to soften his regular grin into something at least less sarcastic. "Next time, you could ask me." _Next time, I could tell you._

A pause as Tsukishima looks at him, hair falling over his ears, as they near the yellow glow of the station platform. Kuroo shows his teeth, raises his eyebrows. Tsukishima sighs. It's next time.

"I wouldn't have minded," Kuroo says, too earnest, but he can't find the dial to turn it back. "I'm here for you, anyway. You know, whatever you want to do with that time."

They come to a stop beside one of the posts on the platform. Tsukishima holds his box from the bakery ten blocks from his current home.

He seems like he doesn't know what more to say; to this, Kuroo can relate. But then he straightens up, shoulders steady in the way where Kuroo didn't realize he wasn't already standing at his fullest height, and there is something that is not a smirk in the tilt of his mouth. 

"The sciences department at school is holding an exhibit soon," he says. "Open to the public on Saturday afternoons, if you're interested. For next time."

Kuroo's insides might be floating. The bright fluorescent bars lined up above them have nothing on the stare-and-you-miss-it openness in Tsukishima's face, when he takes his metaphorical empty hand and holds it out, asking without asking for Kuroo to meet him halfway. "Oh, I'm interested," he says. It's the whole truth, in half the meaning.

Naturally, Tsukishima notices, and though Kuroo wasn't staring, part of his expression quietly closes. But here he stays while Kuroo waits for his train, like he feels it, too -- that this back-and-forth of theirs is no play to win, and no game to lose.

When the time comes, the breeze lifts around them, carrying faint clatter and an imagined scent of speed. Kuroo steps into the space between them, reaching; Tsukishima glances toward him.

"Are you kidding---" he starts, but the offense dies in his voice as Kuroo's ruffling hand stills in his hair.

"It was good to see you," Kuroo says. He runs his fingers back, slow, thumb on Tsukishima's temple above the stem of his glasses, and breathes in as much as he can of the air around Tsukishima's person, because there are some things, digitally unpreserved, that he likes to remember.

Tsukishima shifts toward him as the train pulls to a stop beside the caution line. "Likewise," he says. It lands in Kuroo's ear softer than a whisper of opening doors. Kuroo can barely register Tsukishima's hand at his waist, has just taken note of Tsukishima's skin on his cheek when the cold platform air hugs him once more, and he's through the sliding doors on autopilot before his heartbeat comes back to him.

_Some things..._

Kuroo knows there is an extremely dumb grin stretching across his face, but he doesn't even care. There is Tsukishima in his long ridiculous coat in the late evening stillness, watching Kuroo's train move away, cold shortcake in a bakery box in one hand while his other burrows into a pocket, hiding.

Maybe in a few months, when the weather's turned, or when Kuroo finds it in himself to do so. Maybe he'll take that hand in his own and press his lips to knuckles marked by ghost lengths of tape, and neither of them will try to hide.

He settles into a seat as the train picks up speed, catching his lone reflection in the dark glass.

He wonders what Tsukishima might look like, then, and turns his thoughts forward as he heads home. 

  



End file.
